Member's Off-site Blogs

the rich weather wafties (2012)...

The Sydneysiders on the North Shore are depressed... Business is slack, shops are deserted and going broke, street malls are empty, the summer weather so far has been crap... On top of this, most of the North Shore is the electorate of Tony Abbott. This by itself would be depressing... and more depressing still — for many of the North Shore Siders Tony is Jesus of Nazareth, walking on water and coming to save Australia from its Labor sins...

(author's note: this was written in 2012 when the Australian economy was doing better than most nations on the planet, under Labor, and when climate change was tackled with a price on carbon.

Since then, with Tony Abbott as Prime Minister — Turdius Bullshitor Deviousii of the North Shore — the Australian economy has tanked, the social unrest is visible, climate change is running riot, the moral compass has been flushed down the dunny, the "age of entitlement" has been terminated except for rorting parliamentarians... and windmills are shaking in their boots...)

Update: Bronwyn Bishop is under pressure to resign her North Shore throne... Update: She has resigned as speaker but still hangs on to her north shore seat of retirement villages after a helicopter mishap.

Update: since September last year, Tony Abbott has been polishing the backbenches with his butt — having been deposed by Turnbull-the-Debonair. The Liberal (CONservative) government has rekindled its stars, though it is still serving the same shit. It is incompetent, inept, idiotic, lunatic, follic, stupid and bullshitting — all with elegance. People love all that glitters, even turds...

Update: Tony Abbott wants to seek re-election in his fiefdom, with the premise "he will improve the roads and transport to the North Shore". Pigs will fly before that.

2012 — The North Shore is an area of Sydney where the money is —or was — still is... but they are penny pinching because Tony like Moses on the molehill, keeps telling them the economy is bad or is going to be bad or should have gone bad yesterday, while things are still cruising along quite reasonably compared to the rest of the world... The mining stocks went up to a 17 month high yesterday, the approval from home loans has hit a relative jackpot for a few months now, the price of iron ore is up... What else do they want?... They want to get rid of Labor. They hate Julia.Labor helped the poor and the larger part of the middle class, unlike the Liberals (conservatives, including the North Shore) who would have helped the rich, during the Global Financial Crisis... Labor helped the country stay afloat — ahead of everyone else. This is highly resented by the rich, because financial acumen is an area of Liberal (conservative) privilege — stomping on the workers to be feasting on bonuses... The result is that the rich, in an anticipatory move, might have exchanged their dough into US dollars, but now the Aussie dollar is so high, they cannot move the money back without loosing more of their pants... They resent that.Mind you, there is money nearly everywhere in Sydney, especially if you have a view of the water, live on the water's edge or own acreage... or even have a big mortgage in the "inner city suburbs" from Pyrmont to Kings bloody Cross... Point Piper in the Eastern Suburbs could be the most expensive place to live on this planet, if Elizabeth Bay did not have a couple of magnificent homes better (but smaller) than Buckingham palace... until one discovers it's ONLY a place to live and die, with a fantastic view from a manicured estate... On the "lower" North Shore, there is Mosman where old money has been kept in families for yonks — families that own big mansions. Even the small mansions are being "extended" to make them look like bigger mansions. Most have views of the city, of the harbour, of the ocean, of the sky... of their own navels and bank accounts.But the "upper" North shore siders are generally a special breed of rich... The upper North Shore is a space created by god himself: beaches, surf, sun, leafy nature reserves, palm tree gardens, more jewel beaches edged by gem-like little villages sunk between rocky cliffs and oasis of flowers. It's pretty. The blond bronzed kids who grow up there become surfies and/or drug addicts. Not all of them though. Some become junk-bond traders and make it to the 200 rich list. The lesser crafty intellectuals of them enter trades... Even these tradies are trendy, polite, half-naked and showing muscular bods like Michelangelo statues... and they go to the pub with their mates, the traders. In the past, they wore singlets and thongs by day's end... Dee Why was a bit of a genteel heavenly dive. I knew Dee Why in the seventies... It was a bit like Mount Druit on the beach... Plenty of unmarried young women pushing prams filled with unplanned babies, in a burb that looked crappy to say the least and overrun by billboards — out of control advertising had turned what could have been a half-decent agglomeration of fake fisherman huts and housing commission flats, into a mecca for extreme crass low-end consumerism... The main pub was claimed to be the biggest (or the most patronised) in Australia. There, as the youth got seriously smashed, were launched the careers of many famous Australian bands on a stage set like an island with flashing lights, in a sea of beer... I have been told, the pub got demolished to make room for a bigger pub with more class and a 15 storey tall building. Like the rest of Dee Why, the crassness has vanished somewhat... It's been gentrified, polished, de-billboarded, tradied, re-plumbered... The plumber who comes to fix your leaky tap (good god... the entire world is going down the gurgler) will be the young brat you discreetly snooted the family of, when you collected your own kids from school... But he has smartened up now and earns good money, while your own rich kids, now grown up, are still bludging from you... The school bullies have become politicians, or aspiring pollies by filling the benches of some organisation with the word organisation in it...The North Shore Siders are generous to a fault... The North Shore Siders who can afford acreage and mowing vast expanses of lawn the size of the Versailles gardens really love the quiet, the quiet and the very quiet, except when they mow, blow or mulch something... For some it could take half an hour by car to go and buy a carton of milk. It's pricey isolation. Some go and drive half an hour to buy a loaf of bread impulsively, just to diminish the boredom and say hello to someone...This is where the votes for Tony Abbott ferment... Most North Shore Siders are Liberal (conservative) and they think global warming is crap... True. Look at summer... Barely a day so far to get a tan on that fine James Bond cut face with blue steely eyes and a blond fringe on top. But comfort tends to make some of them — even those who have retired — a bit lazy, complacent somewhat... Not to the point of reading a serious book but the hunger in the belly has been replaced with whale watching from the bay window, with a telescope that the Palomar Observatory would envy.... Those who used to follow the stock market and made their fortune, don't follow things too closely these days until they find someone, possibly a neighbour, took them for a ride and they lost a couple of millions on a dicey "little" sure thingy venture... Or a rich neighbour objected to the council about their plans for a bigger swimming pool and that huge concrete pergola. That hurts. Transport on the North shore is still travelled on roads that were drawn, like most of Sydney's network, by goats on the loose... So one can be in a Beamer or in a tradie's truck and it takes longer to drive from Palm Beach to the city, than to travel to Wollongong. The North Shore Siders dream of better roads... Trains? You're kidding aren't you.?... The place would end up looking like Strathfield... Secretly, they think that better transport to the area would bring twice as many hordes of Westies to the beaches than it does now... Sure the local councils make a killing from car park fees, but there are other problems than over-crowded beaches. The topography that is so pretty is also a curse for roadways. One would have to destroy the landscape to put a highway through.... Even where there is a short six lane highway, here comes the constriction of the Spit Bridge — built in 1958 and back then already too narrow. 54 years later, with compounded doubling of road traffic every ten years, things are not pretty. The buses get a slightly better run because of exclusive Bus Lanes, though the rich drivers in Mercs and 4-wheel-drives will flaunt the rules and zoom into them as if per mistake. That is their explanation to the cops usually waiting at the bottom of the hill... They don't care about being booked... They have lawyers. Or they are lawyers. Or they know someone in the system, high up... Or the fine is like the discounted price of a chocolate bar to you and me. Anyway, I've seen 10 lanes of heavy traffic from three major roads going into one lane while the other three lanes of the bridge are dedicated to the opposite traffic...The North Shore Siders blame the inaction of the successive state Labor governments for their traffic woes... When there is a Liberal government in place — their favourite colour of political paint — they hope the transport status would improve but they know it won't... Should a Labor government come back, they will blame it for the problem, again...They would not live anywhere else for quids... It's where they were born and bread, mostly blue-eyed Aryans-like, apart from a few rich Japanese who took over a suburb in the 1990s and may have left since — who knows — when the Japanese economy tanked.... Multiculturalism on the North Shore is tolerated, as long as you have money... Plenty of money.The summer dress code is often pressed-casual with expensive labels, apart from the geezers who go to the city in Savile Row shirts and Versace pinstripes... Gold is de-rigueur... Mums do not push prams anymore, they drive ultra comfortable monster-trucks disguised as 4-wheel-drives, to the schools... They often park in the middle of the road, to let junior and his friends (not mates) out via a long ladder... After this, they go to the tennis club.The North Shore Siders don't "believe" in global warming... See, the 2012 summer so far has been crap... Really crap. That's a sign that things are cooling... 90 per cent of them are denialists because that's what Tony Abbott believes despite making semi-mitigated noise to the contrary... If Tony Abbott did not believe that global warming was crap, they would turf him out in a jiffy. They would replace him with someone harbouring more rabid views on the subject... Bernardi sounds good. Anyway they know by talking to the guy that Tony's solution to the "problem" is crap and they know that Tony thinks that too, but no-one can let the cat out of bag until he's there, implanted in Canberra... and starting to flog the workers back into submission, for profit... and remove that tax... on carbon... What was this crap? I ask you... The rest of the North Shore Siders (apart from a few rabid Laborites), would think that a) humans are not responsible for a warming which does not exist and b) humans can't do anything to solve a problem of such magnitude that only exists in mad communist scientists' mind, as asserted to them by Alan Jones and Lord Monckton... No, no. They don't listen to Alan Jones. They tell him what to say...The North Shore, I have been told, is thus going broke... Pity... The North Shore Siders are going broke because they once believed in Greenspan, the old financial guru, when he was whispering sweet nothing into the US president's ears — while Monica was taking care of another part... So those North Shore Siders over-invested in their business, homes and gas guzzlers when things-financial were wanking at full speed. Then they found out in 2007 that things were starting to go south... The value of their homes (plural) was halving by the minute... And not only that, they had also invested much of their pocket monies in businesses like Channel Ten and Channel Nine — as sure things — but now these shares are tanking fast as well... As business models go, these things were terrible compared to the NBN which they hate, because Uncle Rupe hates it... Sure they diversified their portfolio, but there is so much one can invest into mining, when Gina owns the lot... And all those people who had bough a nicknack-store with dreams of making it big, would have saturated their market with oil scented wax candles in three days max...No, don't get me wrong, I like the North Shore and its people... Plenty of good people there. Though I wish they would drop Tony Abbott as their representative... And pick someone decent (mentioning Bernardi was a joke). The way Tony and his mob of wolves went after Julia in regard to an old union-onion twenty years ago smells of bullies punching females in a university election lost by the said Tony...Dropping Tony would be an improvement. A weight would lift from the shoulders of this nation. The air would feel fresher instantly and the future would soon rekindle the North Shore Siders tarnished silver... I'd even give them a medal.Their pigheadedness and beliefs on global warming are hard to take... They have no scientific basis, only religious-like beliefs that this cannot be happening on their watch of burning sacred carbon to the god of comfort... The only reason their power bill has gone so high has nothing to do with the air conditioning running all day nor the poles and wiring being replaced at the average price of gold, for wood-sticks in dirt. It all has to do with that wretched carbon tax which won't save the world from anything that does not exist...Those doing the whale-watching of course also blast the anti-whalers with loads of venom, like they did in the past about Greenies saving trees in forest, when the North Shore Siders had plenty of them in their acreage. Anti-whaling gives the nation a bad name to our friends in Japan. Should the North Shore Siders be in charge of the coast guards, they would put these pirates in prison, or sink them whichever came first... Yes, some glorious ancestors of theirs might have been a commercial whaler — hence the family fortune.... Who knows...But on a morning like today, the 12th of the twelfth, 2012, when one looks up at the sky, one can feel a tinge of global warming.. unless it's my rotten knees indicating an unsettled weather... The humidity through the night was around 99 per cent — no rain but heavy dew... The temperature is not high, just weird in the mid range. The planes on landing are creating their own moving clouds, as the dew point was low. The disturbance of the air below the low clouds was enough to create another cloud as if attached to the plane. But this is not enough to tell us that things are not quite right and even if climate change was happening, it would not be an anthropogenic global warming anyway — on the North Shore... Even the North Shore had its first few threatening bush fires of the season. If one looks around, most lawns are parched dry despite the humidity in the air... Some normally resilient plants get leaves burnt by the sun on a hot day... It does not rain much. Elsewhere in the world, glaciers are melting faster than ever...Presently, Sydney weather is strongly influenced by the south east coast current, running around 24 degrees... The cold air from the south picks up moisture and heat from the surface, but being "too warm" this southerly wind that would normally drop the temperature to below 21 degree C and form a southerly "buster", cannot do so... It often fizzles before getting there. Because the energy in the air has become nearly tropical in nature... Too much confused warm energy in the air and the clouds stay low and fuzzy instead of shaping up into a front... Except last weekend when the unusual strong wind vas blustery and whirly for two days, but still no rain despite a small drop in temperature. Too warm. El Nino is having a hell of a time getting a foothold, despite all the factors being in place. The humidity combining with EL Nino makes it behave like a warmish dry La Nina... Weird...Now the wafty clouds have disappeared and the sun is shinning. The North Shore is back on track for a brilliant day at the beach... Global warming is thus far from the mind of the North Shore-siders... They know how to make serious money (and lose it too) but they know zilch, nada, nothing, niet about global warming apart from repeating the mantra that "global warming is crap"... Some of them might venture to say that the "science is not settled on the subject" as a way to shut the argument...Global warming does not exist on the North Shore. And if it did, a few more degrees would make the place, the North Shore, become like Queensland... Beautiful one day, perfect the next...And Tony is on track to be the king of the castle... Everything is great in the North Shore paradise.Except the North Shore Siders are gloomy. They have been told to be gloomy by Tony...I would despair if I was not determined to show the proper science over and over until my knuckles hurt...Meanwhile, on a day that Peter Slipper's case was thrown out of court (12/12/12), as "a politically motivated case" to put it mildly, one can smell the little rat droppings on the North Shore will try another stunt soon to debase the Labor government...Gus leonisky(picture at top by Gus)

Global warming has become perhaps the most complicated issue facing world leaders. Warnings from the scientific community are becoming louder, as an increasing body of science points to rising dangers from the ongoing buildup of human-related greenhouse gases — produced mainly by the burning of fossil fuels and forests.

Over all, global emissions jumped 3 percent in 2011 and are expected to jump another 2.6 percent in 2012, researchers reported.

The new figures show that emissions are falling, slowly, in some of the most advanced countries, including the United States. That apparently reflects a combination of economic weakness, the transfer of some manufacturing to developing countries and conscious efforts to limit emissions, like the renewable power targets that many American states have set. The boom in the natural gas supply from hydraulic fracturing is also a factor, since natural gas is supplanting coal at many power stations, leading to lower emissions.

But the decline of emissions in the developed countries is more than matched by continued growth in developing countries like China and India, the new figures show. Coal, the dirtiest and most carbon-intensive fossil fuel, is growing fastest, with coal-related emissions leaping more than 5 percent in 2011, compared with the previous year.

Of course, my exposé of the Sydney North Shore was a broad brush artistic depiction... I for example did not include in this leafy paradisio, the things that could make tourist squirm... The Funnel Web Spiders, the Ticks, the Mozzies, the Leeches, the bluebottles, the occasional flotsam and jetsam....

So talking of things that float, something came up to our general attention:

THIS WEEK, the Liberal Party showed its true colours, as South Australia’s Liberal Senate ticket was announced, with Cory Bernardi again in the number one position.

I know many of you will be thinking this is a bad thing, however I disagree.

I think that it is vitally important that the public be made aware of the kind of policy ideas and the opinions and attitudes that will take you to the top in the modern day Liberal Party.

Bernardi spent a lot of time in the U.S. studying the workings of the Tea Party; you may remember them as the right-wing lunatics the Republican party can’t distance themselves enough from these days. These were the party faction that was so far to the right that even Dick Cheney needed binoculars to see them.

As soon as the Liberals (conservatives) get their mitts onto anything that has artistic or architectural value, you can bet your bottom dollar that they will do something nasty to it... We all know about Newman cutting funding for the premier literary award in Queensland, we know of the pedestrianism infiltration New South Wales since Barry O'Feral took over. Remember that the Sydney Opera House was the vision of Labor... Now Look at this in the Northern Territory now in the hands of Liberals vandals:

--------------------------------

A major benefactor to the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) says he is considering asking for his donated artworks to be returned in the wake of funding and job cuts at the facility.

A former chairman of the gallery, Colin McDonald, QC, has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in artworks.

Mr McDonald says he is horrified by the news.

"To close down the library and lose the librarian and photographer, and not have the curator, reduces the living arts and scientific institution to a storage shed," he said.

He says he gave his art on the condition it would be looked after properly and displayed for generations of people to enjoy.

"Benefactors like myself have to be considering, well, if those implied conditions are being destroyed, we have to think about asking for our donations back," he said.

Former Northern Territory Administrator Tom Pauling says the Territory Government risks "killing" the Indigenous art culture of the Territory by cutting funding to MAGNT.

The Government is planning to save at least $190,000 in the next financial year by cutting services and bringing in a private security contractor.

For those who don't know, this art gallery is also a museum that apart many things is also the repository of references to the art of Arnhem Land going back 50,000 years... Having a "private contractor" taking charge of this gem, will only encourage pilfering, will not save a cent and destroy a museum culture that has been vibrant for many years. I guess that in the end the job has a good change go to a "friend" of the Liberals, who may have accountancy diploma but zero understanding of art... I could be wrong...

------------------------------

Meanwhile Barry O'Feral, under whatever pretext he's got left after shooters in National Parks — with the blessings of Fred Nile, usually rabid about gambling but now salivating at a new casino in Sydney, as long as it's James Packer's — is about to demolish sumpthin' to rebuild sumpthin' else... This is the developer's dream in which buildings are still good, I mean great, but someone does not like the paint job so they demolish the whole thing...

THE man responsible for the rebirth of Darling Harbour in the 1980s has described its proposed revamp as "the work of Philistines".Laurie Brereton, the former ALP public works minister, who spearheaded the precinct's transformation from a railway yard into a tourist and leisure zone, said he hoped the $2.5 billion remake of Darling Harbour announced on Tuesday would be a vast improvement on the initial drawings.Proposed in 1984, Darling Harbour was a grand, controversial project plagued by cost blowouts. It now attracts 25 million people a year. At the time, the project earned Mr Brereton the moniker Minister for Public Jerks for his roughshod style of administration, and he was dumped from the portfolio before Darling Harbour was completed.

Of course one cannot forget that, while Tony Abbott is the great King Muck of the "upper" North Shore, most of the Lower North Shore, North Sydney is in the hand of vassal Teddy Bear — or Humpty Dumpty. I mean Joe Hockey, Liberal (conservative)...

You may not have noticed, but Joe suffers from a slight speech impediment... I know these very well. The bigger the porkies, the more his bottom lip quivers and hardens, giving the words a tiny different tone to which he intends... You thus know he knows he is bullshitting, while smiling. A trained ear and a trained eye would know this, but a degree in psychology would help. Joe is talking tiny bullshit —sometimes, often... But for him, Abbott and Pyne — truly religious men — political shit-games and manipulation of truth is a fair decent occupation. And of course one has the luxury of confession — and small porkies don't really count as sin... But before having to confess for telling a fib, comes the actual reinforcement of conviction that the bullshit is real stuff — it is an opinion based on shifting sand that one concretes over with quick cement, because one did not really read the memo or such, or although present during a "conspiracy" — sorry, I mean a policy meeting, one did not pay attention to what was being discussed... And Joe's god is not the one in the bible, or is it? Joe's god is forgiving, gentle and like a teddy bear. The god in the bible is always in revenge mode. Or going to war... Or shaking the earth and sending plagues of locusts...So, like the famous "Ted E Bear", Joe tells stories which sound plausible but are often neat and nice crap... Mostly crap that make people smile. Adjusted crap to make the happy world go around. Smile. Joe is debonaire and joyful. Your god being so forgiving for you to tell (small) political fair porkies, why wouldn't you be happy...?That's why like the rest of the muckalition members, he also denies any knowledge of anything, now that the case against slipper was deemed to be "politically" motivated by the judge. Beforehand, ALL the muckalition members, including Joe, were adding their two bobs worth to the muck on the depth of the case way before the case was in motion. Muck is cheap. Two bobs per ton. Moving scales to 18 stones (my low estimate), Joe plays rugby as a loosehead prop though he's sweet and cuddly.Loosehead?... Sure, completely loose but convivial... Joe is funny, giving an impression more like those big boofy blokes, former rugby players mucking about while advertising for Lowes, the big bloke cheap clothing store, rather than a Liberal (conservative) serious stooge... Lowes?... Joe seems to have his pinstripes tailor-made... But I could be wrong on everything here... --------------------------

THE Coalition has challenged Labor to try to reinstate Peter Slipper as speaker if it believes he has been hard done by.

Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey today rejected government claims of an alleged “LNP conspiracy” to bring down Mr Slipper and the government, saying he had no prior knowledge of James Ashby's sexual harassment allegations against Mr Slipper, which were yesterday dismissed by the Federal Court as an abuse of process.

“If the Labor Party believe that Peter Slipper is such a man of integrity and honesty, then they should put him up for speaker again,” Mr Hockey said

The mantra as polished by the muckalition, uttered by Abbott and now by Joe...: reinstate Slipper as Speaker or shut up... very clever...

But it won't stop the stench of the involvement of the muckalition into the Slipper affair... Something will crack... They have gone too far...

In what should be an embarrassing fact for Mr Hockey, 2012-13 will see real government spending fall 4.4 per cent, the biggest cut ever recorded. This cut will see the government spending to GDP ratio fall to 23.8 per cent, having previously been ramped up to successfully counter the shock from the global financial crisis. This level of spending is 0.4 per cent of GDP below the average government spending level of the Howard government. In today's dollar terms, the 0.4 per cent of GDP amounts to around $6 billion.

All of this suggests that the current government and the Labor Party more generally are low taxing and the only side of politics willing to cut spending when required.

CommSec economist Savanth Sebastian said the data showed Australians were still pouring money into savings accounts, aggressively paying down their debts and had benefited from a stronger sharemarket in recent months.

EIGHTY firefighters and three helicopters worked to contain a fire at across the Barrenjoey Headland that threatened the 1800s lighthouse at Palm Beach.Fortunately, the heritage listed lighthouse was saved.NSW Rural Fire Service spokesman, Anthony Clark, said the building was mostly fine although the fire did get into the roof of a part of the complex.

I believe Barrenjoey is part of dumb Tony Abbott's electorate.... On a day when high hot dry winds brought the temperature of this glorious 28th of September about ten degrees Celsius above average, one can only speculate about global warming CONSIDERING September in Sydney has been hovering 5 degrees ABOVE AVERAGE...See article at top... (please note the picture at top was shot from Barrenjoey Lighthouse)... Some people object to me for calling Abbott an idiot or dumb or silly or crappy... I can understand that but Tony Abbott has not realised that global warming is not a game, nor a fallacy... The future of many people depends on being serious about it. This is not a dress rehearsal. This is the real McCoy... The IPCC gives about 30 years to the good people of this planet before GLOBAL WARMING GOES CRITICAL. I give it 19 years... 2032 is the year things will go real bad. 2015 will give us a taste of things to come, 2022 will show acceleration of warming. By 2032, we will be in real strife... I may be too old or too stupid or too dead to notice...

Emergency crews are still at the scene of a horrific accident which has killed two people and injured six others, after a petrol tanker crashed and exploded at Mona Vale on Sydney's northern beaches

Witnesses say there were multiple explosions after the tanker, carrying 18,000 litres of fuel, rolled on its side, burst into flames, collided with several cars on Mona Vale Road at about 3:40pm (AEST).

Police say the fuel tanker caught alight as a result of the multi-vehicle collision, and the fire spread to several cars.

Six people were injured in the crash and subsequent explosions and fire, including the truck's driver.

Gus: I usually would not report on such matter but the location of the accident is telling... First I hope the injured are safe and that the family of the dead are looked after. Of all the road on the North Shore, Mona Vale Road is a twisting and turning pretty two-lane highway — sometimes with three lanes, with one lane allocated for overtaking uphill when the gradient is quite steep... From Terry Hills, the road is set in the middle of the "bush", going through troughs and hills with beautiful vantage points overseeing the ocean afar... This is one of the roads to Palm Beach... Where the recent bushfire nearly took out the lighthouse (read article above and see also http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/27156#comment-28397...

It's one thing to come from the wrong side of the tracks: it's another entirely to come from the wrong side of Military Road.A proposal to split Mosman into five is being considered by the Geographical Names Board, which wants community feedback before making a decision.

As secessionist moves go, subdividing Mosman might not appear to hold a candle to the annual threat of Western Australia breaking away from the rest of the continent.

Nor does it bear the gentle disdain of the citizens of Queens Park splitting from their more salubrious neighbours in Bondi Junction in 1992. (And we all know whose property prices benefited from that move.)But for residents of Mosman, home of the lower north shore's haves and have yachts, these are uneasy times. Dividing the suburb that began as a whaling station may yet spark more wailing.A great number of residents are set to be moved out of Mosman - at least in name.For years, the ties binding residents have been obvious: rugby, rowing, the professions and Volvos.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/five-uneasy-pieces-as-mosman-faces-splitup-20131030-2whgw.html#ixzz2jGJcVW2Uread Gus' article at top...Picture by Gus. To the right, hidden, is Chinaman's Beach, an exclusive part of Mosman. beyond is the former army reserve now National Park in which exclusive Clifton Gardens is nestled. On the left is Clontarf, another exclusive suburb for rich executives. In the middle is the traffic restriction of the Spit Bridge, a bridge built in 1958... Military road is the road that sits on top of the ridge at right and then divides towards Taronga Zoo (and the Nationa Park in the mid-background of picture) and the road towards Palm Beach (recently burnt in part by bush fires) et al, using the Spit Bridge for crossing Middle Harbour...In the far far background is the suburb of Watson's bay, another "exclusive enclave" near the super rich suburbs of Eastern Sydney... The buildings across the Harbour, on the other side of "middle Head"(National park), are part of Vaucluse. Exclusive plus.

Actually forget the "Volvos", Mosman might be the place in Australia where there are more 4WD SUV Merc and Lexus or Toyotas, driven by mums on the way to exclusive private schools like SCEGGS and others...

The nation's oldest department store appears to have been flooded since September's federal election by exuberant Liberal voters happy to celebrate the victory with a new suit, dress or bottle of perfume.David Jones is one of the few discretionary retailers to have swollen cash registers in the wake of the election, in the midst of continued gloom elsewhere in the sector.Chief executive Paul Zahra said first-quarter sales were up 2.1 per cent to $424.2 million, and September had been a good month for the business.This was thanks to certainty flowing from the change of government, a higher sharemarket and household budgets in better shape.''September was a stand-out, so you can draw the conclusion it was driven by the election,'' he said. ''But as most people know, 78 per cent of our stores, excluding CBD locations, sit in Coalition seats, so that's got to be favourable to the company.''Investors have pounced on the company's shares, which closed 6.6 per cent higher at $2.90.Mr Zahra said its range of Australian fashion designers was experiencing double-digit sales growth, while fashion and beauty as a whole had all been stronger in the September quarter.

To be frank here, very little has changed in the Aussie economic status except that the Libs (CONservatives) after years of demanding belt tightening have now decided on largess for the banks and floggings of the ordinary people by executing a nifty arbitrary save-money-by-sacking-people... Thus the folks of the liberal tendencies are now spending the money they always had or the money they will get, on credit.... Ordinary people will dance in the streets once Abbott and his bunch of gnomes are out of the picture. Read story at top...

Retail billionaire and founder of furniture and bedding store Harvey Norman, Gerry Harvey, has called on the new Abbott government to quickly eliminate the ‘‘100-foot-high’’ tower of red tape constricting business growth in Australia as consumers still refuse to open their wallets at his shops.

The executive chairman of Harvey Norman also said he was at a loss to explain why higher consumer confidence in the wake of the federal election had not translated into improving sales, while he called on an end to the ‘'nanny state'’ and for a return to old fashioned values of people taking responsibility for their actions.

‘‘People have to look after themselves,’’ Mr Harvey said. ‘‘When I grew up there was a self-care thing, you had to learn by your mistakes you didn’t have everyone around the place looking after me and changing my nappy every time I peed myself, so you have to look after yourself, take responsibility for your actions and things like that.

Sounds good... but taking responsibility for oneself is one thing and buying furniture is another... Besides, 70 years ago, the "lawyer industry" and "litigation of sorts" were only the privilege of the super rich gentlemen... Now councils can be sued for someone peeing in their pants in a park because of lack of bushes — and be fined thousands of dollars....

A proposal to split Mosman into five separate suburbs has been abandoned, with Mosman mayor Peter Abelson forced to admit he misled residents.The humiliating back-down follows community outrage over the plan to divide Mosman along Military Road, creating suburb Balmoral Beach to the east, Clifton Gardens to the south-east, Beauty Point to the north-west and Mosman Bay to the south.In a letter to residents, Cr Abelson said that in discussing the use of geographical names he "inadvertently provided significant misinformation".He said the intention behind the plan, under consideration by the Geographical Names Board, was to allow residents to choose between using the local historic names or to continue using a Mosman address.He claims he was unaware that the Geographical Names Board did not allow residents to make this choice.

See story, two above this one (pity the have-not yacht)... It takes a long time for the geographical board to change names of localities... And the residents must prove that the name is either confusing or disgusting — something which has happened in the past.... Even then it's rare that once a name is given, it it taken back... This can happen when a roundabout or a newly created plaza is named after a popular pollie, a famous bushranger or a sporting celeb.... The space called Oxford Street Corner can thus be renamed as Whitlam square despite being round or such...

Thank you for taking the time to visit my web page. We, who live in Mackellar, live in one of the most beautiful parts of the world, which is often referred to as “God’s own Country”.

With its vast beaches and coastline spanning from Dee Why to Palm Beach and the rich bushland and national parks that run from Frenchs Forest, Davidson and Belrose down to the ocean it is no wonder it’s considered an environmental marvel.

As you local member I believe that it is vital that I am active and engage with you and our community to ensure that we preserve our natural environment and our lifestyle for future generations as well as fighting for essential services that we rightly deserve.

I know that as we continue to work together in our community with a common purpose we can preserve our uniquely Australian way of life.

As Bronwyn, one of the other members of parliament from that fair weather wafty north shore (no global warming there), urges us to protect (her) GOD'S OWN COUNTRY, BUT according to "No-Surprise-Tony", let's go and chop a few trees in the protected forest of Tasmania since no-one lives there... The hypocrisy of the Liberals (CONservatives) is unfathomable and bathed in godly double-speak...

Unless the inner-city leftists can get the Western Sydney types back on side, Tony Abbott will be left free to push measures that benefit his North Shore constituents to the detriment of others, writes Nigel Bowen.

Post budget, entire episodes of Q&A have passed without a single question from the audience about same-sex unions and the newspapers are full of hard-luck stories rather than think pieces about transphobia.

Could it be the Left is on the verge of re-engaging with bread-and-butter distributional issues?

There are not a lot of parallels between my life and Tony Abbott's but as luck would have it we were both raised in the upper middle class milieu of Sydney's North Shore.

Before proceeding further I should point out that Abbott's current neighbourhood and my former one, while Liberal Party heartland, is neither monolithically conservative nor affluent. The area is neither devoid of low to middle income earners nor people with left-of-centre views - the likes of Tim Freedman, Peter Garrett and Mike Carlton, for example, are all past or current residents.

That noted, I believe it's fair to say Abbott is, to an extent yet to be fully appreciated, a product of his environment and that his first budget faithfully reflects what might be labelled the North Shore worldview.

In brief, such a Weltanschauung can be boiled down to the following fundamentals: the ALP are incompetent socialists who will invariably blow up the economy whenever they gain control of the Treasury benches; public servants are bludgers; unions are a dangerous scourge; the average worker is indolent at best and dishonest at worst and welfare recipients are scroungers who should pull themselves up by the bootstraps.

Of course, such an outlook is hardly confined to Sydney's North Shore. Both throughout Australia and in many other countries, it's the default position of those who are well-positioned enough to opt out of the public system themselves and resent having to shell out to provide health and education services, as well as welfare and old-age pensions for the improvident lower orders.

While displaying a Google-like ingenuity at using negatively geared property, family trusts and self-managed super funds to minimise his or her tax, your North Shorian (both actual and honorary) remains all too painfully aware they are getting a bad deal. And he or she is not accustomed to being on the losing side of a transaction.

The point of this piece isn't to debate the merits or otherwise of this Ayn Randesque mindset - North Shorians vote for their economic interests, as would be expected. The interesting issue is that in the last seven federal elections enough non-North Shorians - many of them unionists, public servants, low to middle income employees and welfare recipients - have voted for the Coalition to give it an impressive five wins/one draw/one loss record.

Both Abbott and I grew up in simpler times when it was assumed that Westies (both actual and honorary) would support Labor. Indeed, the notion they'd embrace the Liberal Party seemed to make as much sense as Penrith Panthers fans burning their club jerseys and opting to barrack for the Manly Sea Eagles or embrace rugby union.

To make sense of this political development we need to introduce a third grouping into the equation, many of them the upwardly mobile offspring of Westies or the downwardly mobile ones of North Shorians.

As is frequently observed, Inner City Types, while lacking the demographic heft of the Westies or the economic muscle of the North Shorians, are disproportionately represented among the ranks of progressive activists, ALP and Green politicians, public servants, academics, artists and, ahem, journalists.

As is also frequently observed, for the last three decades Inner City Types have had little interest in the meat and potato distributional issues of politics, preferring to devote their time and energy to causes that either have a direct bearing on people like them (i.e. seeking to ensure that well-educated, middle to upper-middle class women have the same career opportunities as well-educated, middle to upper middle class men) or relate to appealingly exotic oppressed groups (i.e. Indigenous Australians, East Timorese, Tibetans, Palestinians, boatpeople, transsexuals).

That the Westies - increasing numbers of whom were dealing with mortgage stress, job insecurity and four hour commutes to work - failed to show the appropriate concern for those experiencing Third World Problems, or saw them as competitors for scarce resources, was taken by Inner City Types as proof of their irredeemably reactionary boganism.

Of course, while the Left has been otherwise engaged the Right has been busily reversing many of the hard-won progressive victories achieved from the time of the Great Depression until the overturning of the post-war Keynesian settlement at the beginning of the 1980s.

The Coalition has now started in on undermining the social wage, which was meant to be the pay-off to non-North Shorians for the painful neo-liberal restructuring of the economy under Hawke-Keating, and which was largely maintained by the populist Howard.

If the Coalition wins a second term - and post-war history suggests a conservative federal government can expect at least three terms and possibly up to nine - deregulating the industrial relations system will undoubtedly be next on the agenda.

In much the same way Inner City Types are given to gazing wistfully at the Nordic social democracies, North Shorians admire the US, a nation where the wealth creator is venerated.

Unless the Inner City Types can rethink their political priorities and get the Westies on side, Abbott, long dismissed as "some kind of old-fashioned DLP pseudo-socialist" by observers ranging from Peter Costello to Mark Latham, looks set to Americanise Australia in a way that benefits his own North Shore constituents while imposing significant hardship on those less well located.

Nigel Bowen is a freelance journalist who writes about politics and pop culture among other topics. View his full profile here.

Travel times on one of Sydney's worst commuter road journeys will be slashed and the Baird government will consider a new vehicle tunnel beneath Military Road under plans set to be announced in Tuesday's state budget.

The measures affecting Pittwater, Spit and Military roads could provide relief to long-suffering motorists and potentially increase public transport use.

It is understood the government will reveal plans for an above-ground ''rapid bus transit'' system between Mona Vale and central Sydney.

Bus services between Spit Junction and Wynyard can vary from the timetable by up to 20 minutes and morning peak traffic can crawl along the Manly-Military-Spit roads arterial at an infuriating 18km/h.

It is also understood the government will fund a feasibility study into building a vehicle tunnel that would allow commuters to avoid the bumper-to-bumper grind.

Premier Mike Baird signalled on Wednesday that measures to relieve the thickened traffic artery, which passes through his electorate of Manly, were overdue.

''[The northern suburbs] have been ignored for too long … I'm happy to argue with anyone and everyone that we need these funds in our community. They will make a big difference,” he told the Mosman Daily.

A Transport for NSW pre-feasibility study in 2012 examined five options between Mona Vale and the city. They included a two-lane bus tunnel from Spit Junction to the Warringah freeway, establishing 24-hour bus lanes and widening the Spit Bridge to six lanes.

Bus lanes could flow along the kerb or down the median. Depending on the option chosen, on-street parking could be removed and roadways widened.

See all articles on this line of blogs... including the smart tunnel in Holland. One of the major problem of creating "arteries" is moving traffic jams from one spot to another as well as creating more jams because the easier it becomes to travel by car the more cars get on the road... Imagine a long traffic jam in a long tunnel... It's like being trapped in a elevator. Some people start to panic especially when one starts to run out of oxygen... Scary.

They appeared to be three normal northern beaches mates who liked to ski together and party hard.

But police believe the trio of 23-year-old school friends are behind the spread of one of the most potent and potentially deadly batches of ecstasy pills the state has seen.

A warning was issued in August after police detected a batch of blue pills stamped with a Batman logo and spiked with the deadly 25c-NBOMe, a synthetic LSD-like substance linked to the deaths of several young people, including north shore teenager Henry Kwan.

It's a project that has riled the normally sedate residents of Manly and could soon see them marching in the streets.

The thought of losing their downtown car park – a long-time target of developers – and gaining a 740-space car park underneath Manly Oval at a cost of $35 million has locals in a lather and split Manly Council along party lines.

Virtually all of Manly's precinct committees are opposing the project, which is part of council's Manly 2015 plan. It's being championed by Manly's Liberal mayor Jean Hay as a way to rejuvenate the area because it would enable the 1970s above-ground car park in the the centre of Manly to be sold for as much as $16 million.

The main objection is the financial risk that the project entails, North Harbour Precinct chairman Terry le Roux says. The project would involve council taking $35 million in borrowings over the next 50 years.

Experts say it will make losses for at least the first 12 years because the demand will not be there, raising questions about why there is such haste. The current car park, which makes a profit, has 400 spaces.

And while the capital expenditure has received sign-off from the Department of Local Government, it was on lukewarm terms.

"While primary concerns have been addressed, I note the complexity and risks associated with the project, the department's director-general, Ross Woodward, wrote last month.

While the capital expenditure criteria of his department had been "broadly met", Mr Woodward said there remained issues, notably questions about the viability of the project, including the assumptions of future growth and the price that could be achieved for the sale of the old car park.

Mr Woodward also queried whether the council could achieve long-term financing at 5 per cent and whether it had sufficiently budgeted for unforeseen events.

The project is being supported by Manly Rugby Club president David Begg, whose club uses the oval as its home ground. However he said while he was generally in favour, there were many views within the club. He wanted to be sure the benefits would outweigh the disruption that the club will face while construction takes place.

Mr Begg is also well connected in the Liberal Party. He is close friends with Cr Hay and Premier Mike Baird who are patrons of the club.

As his website boasts, "he's been a key member of the NSW Liberal Party since 1989". He served on the NSW Liberal Party's State Executive and in July his lobbying firm, Premier State, disclosed a $100,000 donation to the Liberals' state office, seven months after it was made.

But Mr Begg firmly rejects any suggestion that his support is linked to his day job as principal of Premier State lobbyists whose clients include the Mounties, which own Manly Bowling Club.

The Sydneysiders on the North Shore are depressed... Business is slack, shops are deserted and going broke, street malls are empty, the summer weather so far has been crap... On top of this, most of the North Shore is the electorate of Tony Abbott. This by itself would be depressing... and more depressing still — for many of the North Shore Siders Tony is Jesus of Nazareth, walking on water and coming to save Australia from its Labor sins...(repeated from top article)

But then again, since Tony took over the economical insanity of this country, the North Shore depression of the Swan years are remembered fondly as a Sunday picnic compared to the present social gulags and economic disaster that Tony Abbott has imposed on this country. They still would vote for him though. Their delusion is strong and their fortunes still doubling nicely in Luxembourg or/and The Bahamas. But the local mood is still relying on beach-goers buying beach towels with Manly motifs. This proving once and for all that "money does not buy happiness"...

Meanwhile, in the washing machine of soapy politics:

But add a bit more biodegradable detergent and some entertaining tid bits can fluoresce.

They are furious at the board and Health Minister Jillian Skinner for what they say is a "short-sighted" decision to sell or lease the southern part of the hospital campus for $97 million, as well as for claiming the decision was supported by medical staff.

But the chair of the Northern Sydney Local Health District Board appears to be backing away from the decision, telling Fairfax Media that the board had "no responsibility" for the sale, and a recent decision to open expressions of interest was "entirely the decision of government".

The chair of the hospital's Medical Staff Council, Adam Rehak, said the money from the sale would only cover between one month and six week's worth of running costs, while the loss of about 8 per cent of the hospital grounds would have long-term impacts, and was "short-sighted and irresponsible".

"The NSW government seems to be willing to compromise the long-term future of the hospital in order to get a couple of ... services paid for in the short-term," he said. "We are talking about what will happen in 25 or 30 years' time, when there are significant changes in technology and we need to adapt".

Staff had provided the government with suggestions to generate between $10 million and $12 million annually by leasing out parts of the existing buildings to the private sector, he said.

Royal North Shore is a major referral hospital for trauma, spinal injuries and burns across NSW, serving about one in six people.In opposition, Ms Skinner was a fierce opponent of Labor plans to sell-off part of the site.

Labor health spokesman Walt Secord said the land should not be sold when it was already at a premium.

"When the hospital expands in the future due to population growth, it will cost more to expand the hospital facilities," he said.

Tensions have been building after officials claimed doctors had signed off on the land sale during consultations for a site master plan.

Dr Rehak said the plan had made no mention of land sell-offs and had only identified the southern section, known as zone eight, as having the potential for "commercial opportunities".

Interesting to see how pollies — Liberals (CONservatives) and Labor — do major back flips on their intentions in regard to stuff. I have witnessed the same rolly-polly rigmarole on the development of Barangaroo, when everyone was making promises to stop the project (or consult with the population which was against it) in order to get elected... Consultation and promises went out the window two days after the elections and the project has been going at a speed of knots, despite a few incident and the toxicity of the land on which it is built. And of course, Bazza added a casino, without any consultation with the populace since he thought it was a good idea for Mr James Packer to fleece punters, here and from China...

Liberal MPs and opposition strategists say Prime Minister Tony Abbott's toxic standing in the electorate could directly cost the Coalition up to six or seven seats at the NSW March state election.

Amid a horror start to the political year – typified by his widely ridiculed decision to award Prince Philip a knighthood – Mr Abbott has been kept conspicuously off the campaign trail in Queensland at the insistence of Premier Campbell Newman.

According to a poll released on Wednesday night, Mr Newman is on track to lose his own seat, with federal issues like the uproar over knighting a British Royal thought to be a negative factor in his republican-leaning Brisbane electorate of Ashgrove.

ReachTEL polling, commissioned by Seven News, puts Labor's Kate Jones ahead of Mr Newman at 46.5 per cent to 42 per cent of the primary vote.

Advertisement

A NSW Liberal Party figure said it would be harder than in Queensland to "inoculate" the state campaign of Premier Mike Baird as NSW is Mr Abbott's home state and Mr Baird's Manly electorate sits within the Prime Minister's federal seat of Warringah.

Another Liberal said there would be no way to avoid Mr Abbott's involvement but Mr Baird, who is flying high in the polls and is expected to win back government, was determined to run a campaign focused only on state issues.

"But it's going to have an impact," said a senior source in relation to what people are calling "the Abbott factor".

A state government MP said he was not aware of a single colleague who has invited Mr Abbott or Treasurer Joe Hockey to any campaign events.

"Normally the federal secretariat would be being deluged with dozens of requests for them to attend events and fundraisers," the MP said.

The toxic Tony syndrome is actually like the flu. It's has infected most Liberal (CONservative) members of parliament as well as some conservative voters... This sorry disease makes those affected desperately zealot and aggressively bullying while being unable to understand sciences. It is infiltrating your brain with delusional dreams as it lures you with the sound of cash register, but the cash register is empty... It can make you desperate to argue against any social equity and give you an urgent need to pee on the proletariat. We understand. Read story from top (note: it was written 2 years ago before the infection spread nationwide)...

The writer and political commentator Bob Ellis says he may have only weeks to live.

“The news is very bad and I may have months to live but it is more like weeks,” he posted on his personal blog on Sunday.

Ellis, writing his blog Table Talk from Mona Vale hospital on Sydney’s northern beaches, said on Friday he was awaiting tests on his liver function, “which look ominous”. He warned that the blog “may cease altogether” within weeks.

Ms Bishop would come under increasing pressure to make sure she did not stand for re-election to Parliament, her critics in the party said. This would present an opportunity to put a strong candidate into the plum Liberal seat of Mackellar, on Sydney's northern beaches.

Another described the mood in the NSW Liberal Party in the wake of the disaster as "ABB: anyone but Bronwyn".

Mr Smith and Mr Southcott, both experienced parliamentarians with frontbench experience, have become the early standouts in a "Melbourne Cup field" of possibilities now jostling for the plum $341,000-a-year post of Speaker.

Their enthusiasm has been stoked by an open commitment from Prime Minister Tony Abbott to eschew any "captain's picks" in favour of selecting the next Speaker through an open race in the Liberal party room. A meeting is scheduled for next Monday, when Parliament resumes in Canberra.

In February, after narrowly surviving a leadership spill, PM Tony Abbott asked for six more months to bring good government. Michael Galvin says the results are in and they don't look good.

Six months ago, Abbott barely survived a party vote for his own job. At the time, he pleaded for more time – for another six months or so – when he promised that there would be no more stuff-ups, that he could turn the polls around, and that good government, or at least better government, would henceforth be the order of the day.

“Good government starts today”, he said bellicosely, before later clarifying that good government apparently "starts every day".

Well, whatever, the six months of Abbott’s own self-declared “probation” are now up and we have just witnessed a stuff-up of gold star proportions. It is difficult to see how any reasonably intelligent member of his Government would not conclude that the man is not up to the job. He just doesn’t have the character, the temperament, or the competence for the job of PM — that is now all too abundantly evident.

There are so many aspects of the Choppergate fiasco worthy of comment that it is difficult to know where to begin. Here are just some.

Abbott is no longer the prime minister since being replaced by Malcolm Turnbull last September. Now as Tony Abbott is trying hard to make life difficult for Malcolm Turnbull, Tony's seat of Warringah is becoming unsettled for him. The largest proportion of voters wants him to go to more rotten pastures. He still hangs on like a bad smell, may be "doing the right thing" by waiting for the next election to quit, rather than have another expensive by-election. Meanwhile, the centre is rising:

A migrant woman has decided to take on the “David and Goliath battle” against former prime minister Tony Abbott for his blue ribbon Sydney seat of Warringah, standing for the political party of South Australian senator, Nick Xenophon.

UK-born Marie Rowland, who has Sri Lankan and British heritage and lived in New Zealand before arriving in Australia, announced her candidacy for the Nick Xenophon Team on Sunday.

Tony Abbott lasted less than two years in the PMship, from 18 September 2013 to 15 September 2015. He was woeful. He was the pits. He was deceitful. He was dishonest. Possibly worse than Billy McMahon who lasted from 10 March 1971 to 5 December 1972. Billy was simply out of his depth.

Mr Abbott had previously said he wanted to take time off from politics to spend more time with his family.

But in a statement, he confirmed he would recontest the seat, saying his colleagues had encouraged him to stay in politics after leaving the prime ministership last year.

"I have been heartened by the support and encouragement I've received to continue to serve the country as a member of Parliament," he said.

"Should I be renominated and elected, I am looking forward to working with Premier Mike Baird to ensure that the Warringah Peninsula gets better transport links to the rest of Sydney."

Former employment minister Eric Abetz was quick to defend the move, denying Mr Abbott was like Mr Rudd, who returned to the prime ministership three years after he lost the leadership to Julia Gillard, only to lose the ensuing federal election to Mr Abbott..

Support? Yes... from a few right wing religious ignoramus demagogues who think Tony wears or is Ants Pants... The red budgie kid has recognised he is basically UNEMPLOYABLE in the private sector. He never had a job to speak of outside politicking. Who would want to employ him, I may ask? The kid has ADHD, lies at the drop of hat and will fucup before midday. Tony Abbott sure is no Kevin Rudd, Mr Abetz. Tony Abbott is the nasty little bully brat that makes Kevin Rudd look like a saint. See story from top...

All politicians in the deepest valley harbour a belief that, since politics is such a volatile and unpredictable profession, they can always return to the highest mountain. After all, history is littered with examples of great political comebacks: Menzies, Churchill, de Gaulle, Nixon, Wilson, Howard, Rudd and, of course, Turnbull.

Tom Switzer (born 1971 in Dallas, Texas, USA[1]) is an Australian conservative columnist and foreign policy analyst. He is editor of American Review[2] and a research associate at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney where he teaches American politics and history. He is also the host of Between the Lines on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Radio National.

By all account, the public at large had lost confidence in Tony Abbott for good reasons. He is a loose cannon who is prepared to send you and me as fodder for his illusions of grandeur. What Tom Switzer glorifies in Abbott is basically crap, dirt, shit and rubbish. Abbott is not a Menzies, a Churchill, a de Gaulle, a Nixon, a Wilson, a Howard, a Rudd and certainly not a Turnbull. All of these were and are clever enough despite their failings. Tony Abbott is not clever. He is a dumb as they come in the village, except he is as devious as the snake that enticed Eve and Adam to eat the apple. When he was minister for Health, he made promises like he always did and does — but never delivered. He did the same to get elected in 2013. He lies. He bullies. He fucups. He twists what he says to mean the opposite.

Tony Abbott does not have one ounce of human capital to deliver in another political life... Should he come back in the fold, he would create more shit. We don't need that.

The possibility of pulling off an unlikely victory at the election is too remote for Labor to contemplate realistically. But they will be encouraged by the sight of Tony Abbott on the backbench, writes Mungo MacCallum.

But, unfortunately for the Coalition, almost all the rejoicing was coming from the Labor Party.

True, it was more about wistful dreaming than about confidence; while the ALP's polling is not as abysmal as that of its leader, it remains pretty bad.

The possibility of pulling off an unlikely victory at the election is too remote to contemplate realistically.

But while there is Abbott, there is hope.

And there is now no real doubt that there will be Abbott, perched securely on the back bench (an honourable position, as he rightly avers) to divide and disrupt the government, and most particularly its leader.

Clearly he will bolt in the preselection - he may even be unopposed.

And such is the nature of the insular peninsula of Sydney's northern beaches. That blind loyalty, not to mention unwavering conservatism, will ensure that he will retain the seat for however long he wants it.

Jones' enthusiastic backing for Mr Calcraft will be unwelcome news for Mrs Bishop, with a growing field of candidates expected to have assembled by the close of nominations at 5pm on Friday.

In the past, Mr Jones has been a vocal supporter of Mrs Bishop, including during the mid-90s when there was a push to install her as leader of the Liberal Party over John Hewson.

Mrs Bishop was the first guest on Jones' short-lived Channel Ten chat show in 1994. he introduced her as a "future prime minister of Australia".

Last year, Mrs Bishop chose Jones' 2GB breakfast show as her first and only interview after weeks of public outrage over the "choppergate" affair that eventually ended her career as Speaker.

Jones is hugely influential in Liberal circles on the northern beaches. He wrote a similarly-forceful letter to preselectors in Warrringah in 1994 when a 36-year-old Tony Abbott surprised moderate elements of the Liberal Party to gain preselection.

Still angered by Mrs Bishop's decision to support Malcolm Turnbull in September against Mr Abbott, she is also in the sights of the hard right.

As revealed by Fairfax Media on Monday, Walter Villatora, Mr Abbott's campaign manager in Warringah and president of his federal electorate conference, will also contest Mackellar.

In the Saturday Paper, the Gadfly, aka Richard Ackland tells us the story of the North Shore...

Abbott and Bishop ex-communicated.Traditionally Lord Moloch's outpost on the northern beaches, The Manly Daily has been the voice of the Liberal Party.Local Members T. Abbott and B. Bishop were usually covered in thick layers of editorial admiration. But the tide appears to be turning.

... So the story continues telling us that at the Seaforth RSL, Tony said to a crowd of admirers: "Each and every one of us in this room is to do everything we can to elect the Turnbull government." Tony apparently smirked sheepishly when the crowd booed at the sound of Turn-bull...

Everywhere, Tony goes to promote "a Turnbull government", then he smirks like a shifty bastard...

Bronwyn Bishop has a headstart in her quest to remain the Liberal Party candidate for Mackellar after four of her own staff members were granted a vote in the crucial preselection run-off for the blue ribbon seat.

The presence of almost her entire electorate office on the preselectors list has angered some local Liberals hoping for generational change.

Among the confirmed preselectors are Cromer branch president Parry Skene, who works as Mrs Bishop's community engagement officer and Robyn Young, who works a day a week in the Mackellar office.

UPDATE: NSW Premier Mike Baird has confirmed the Spit Bridge bypass tunnel will be built, in response to questions about the new NRMA report on transport options for Sydney's north-east.

Speaking on 2GB this afternoon, Mr Baird said the looming construction of the second Harbour Tunnel makes the project feasible.

"We certainly will (build the tunnel) ... that would be connecting through to the western Harbour Tunnel and that's what makes the project work ... it can be considered as part of that project," he said

"It's on the list as part of the Sydney motorway network ... it's my job to move these projects forward."

Dr John Bradfield designed and oversaw the construction of the iconic structure but also called for the establishment of a rail line that would today relieve the traffic congestion plaguing the Lower North Shore and Northern Beaches.

Quite fascinating that the news of the tunnel which was also mentioned on the ABC (because it had been mentioned in the Murdoch media) has been concentrated in the Murdoch press... and the Manly Daily which is owned by Mr Mudoch... Mr Murdoch (and his media) was the main supporter of Tony Abbott in 2013... Tony Abbott is a smelly double dealing little rat...